Dan Murray

Looking for Kool-Aid at the Tableau conference

November 21, 2011

It’s no secret that some people hear about Tableau’s passionate users and wonder what all the fuss is about. Back in June, in fact, one skeptical industry analyst tweeted to a Tableau fan, “Pal, you seem to have had a bit too much Tableau Kool-Aid.” Tableau users I know just shrug. People who say things [...]

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Let your gray hair light your way through unfamiliar data

November 8, 2010

How do you approach unfamiliar data? An investment banker I talked to last week — one I know from a client’s whitepaper — rejects the “don’t think” method, advocated in my earlier post about Dan Murray. Instead, he thinks first, on paper. “My approach is driven by having a bunch of gray hair,” says Michael [...]

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How to analyze unfamiliar data: circle, dive, and riff

October 18, 2010

When you come face to face with unfamiliar data, how do you proceed? How do you avoid sending you and your shiny “speed of thought” tool slamming into a dead end? Dan Murray’s got a routine — and he’s also got certain music and right-brained books to go along. Dan’s first rule: “Don’t pre-think.” It’s [...]

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Tableau Public launches visual analysis for the masses

February 22, 2010

I’m sorry to tell you serious types out there, but visual analysis is often a game — in fact, one of the best games in town with Tableau Software’s visual analysis tool. Now Tableau Public is going to bring it to the masses. In the same way that YouTube spawned a surge of new filmmakers, [...]

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Stalking the why: selling visual analysis

October 21, 2009

How do you show the value of visual analysis to business people? Dan Murray can show it in demos, but he keeps looking for the “magic dust” that explains in a snap. He sees visual analysis as a key part of low-cost business intelligence at small- and medium-sized organizations — and he’s set out with [...]

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Blog for the times: on high-value, low-cost BI

July 20, 2009

Dan Murray expects to take another step this week in his thrilling rebellion, spreading the word on high value, low cost BI. Though it’s a rebellion and may burn with Che Guevara-type zeal, Dan’s methods actually lean way over toward Darwinian evolution. Revolution is expensive and risky, he writes, while evolution is intelligent and incremental. [...]

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Thrilling rebellion

July 8, 2009

Dan Murray’s taking on Big BI — and in just under two weeks at the Tableau Customer Conference in Seattle, he’s going to explain his four steps to rebellion — that is, “a high value, low cost BI reporting system.” Dan devised the system when the company he worked for — which had revenue of [...]

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